Russia To Expand Naval Capabilities

Russia's lack of genuine aircraft carriers has long limited its naval capabilities and reflected the navy's status as an essentially coastal force whose role was to deny neighboring waters to enemies.

Russia has just one aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which was built in Soviet times and is not a substantial asset. Technically characterized as a "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser," it carries 17 fixed-wing aircraft, compared with the 90 deployed by a U.S. Nimitz-class carrier.

Carrier battle groups. On April 4, Navy Commander in Chief Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky confirmed that Russia would build five to six new aircraft carriers. Since last year there has been talk of establishing powerful task forces, but the recent statement gave concrete details on what some observers had hitherto discounted as empty dreams:

--New carriers. The design of the new carriers has not been finalized, although it is likely that they will be full-deck nuclear-powered vessels carrying both air groups of 30 to 40 aircraft and anti-ship missiles. Construction of the first is reportedly due to start in 2012 or 2013, although this is not included within the current State Arms Program (which covers 2007 to 2015). It has also been announced that new training facilities for naval aviation pilots are to be built, to be ready for use by 2010.

--Battle groups. The aircraft carriers will be just the basis for joint task groups, due to be completed between 2050 and 2060. These will include a range of assets, including submarines, surface combat units and a full array of aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as small Naval Infantry commando forces.

Although it is unclear just how he reached these figures, Vysotsky told a press conference that the formation of these battle groups will increase the navy's combat effectiveness by up to 300%.

"Blue water" doctrine. These formations are not defensive and only make sense in the context of a comprehensive review of naval doctrine. Rather than concentrating on denying Russian waters to enemies, this doctrine addresses the active domination of foreign seas and the use of battle groups as means of projecting both military and political power globally. Such a shift has been foreshadowed:

--Mediterranean deployment. While Russian ships have periodically passed through the Mediterranean, Moscow has not sought to maintain a permanent deployment there in the past.

However, in 2006 Russia began to reactivate two facilities on the Syrian coast, dredging the port at Tartus (where its 720th Logistics Support Point had been mothballed since 1991) and building new docks at Latakia.

In 2007, the Admiral Kuznetsov exercised in the Mediterranean as part of an unprecedentedly large task force, and former naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin expressed his view that Russia needed a permanent presence there.

--Indian Ocean exercises. Military cooperation with India was underlined in 2003 when, in its largest out-of-area deployment for a decade, the Russian navy sent six warships to join the INDRA-2003 exercise in the Indian Ocean. Since then, Russian ships have been regular participants in Indian exercises and, notwithstanding disputes over arms transfers, 2008 promises the largest such deployments yet.

--Arctic control. NATO and the European Union are increasingly concerned about the prospect of naval confrontations with Russia over maritime resources. Norway and Russia are at odds over hydrocarbon reserves in the waters around Spitsbergen, for example, and Moscow is trying to assert its claims to the Arctic shelf.

Also, as global warming opens new shipping routes across the Arctic, their control will become a potential bone of contention. Moscow has already suggested that its navy would "provide security" for vessels on these routes, an offer being interpreted as a claim to control over this new North-West Passage.

--Flying the flag. Deployments to the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and the Arctic have only minimal military implications. Their real significance is that they reflect a growing willingness on the part of Moscow to see its fleet as a political instrument, able to consolidate and draw attention to alliances, underline military revival and support economic claims.

This is something President Vladimir Putin underlined in a closed meeting with military commanders in February, and a role for which the navy is uniquely well suited. Thus, major exercises in the North Atlantic in January--the largest in post-Soviet times--were also intended to warn NATO against antagonizing Russia further.

OxfordAnalytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on a network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading universities and research institutions around the world. For more information, please visit oxan.com. To find out how to subscribe to the firm's Daily Brief Service, click here.